Shadow Spell

by Caro King

  Nin blushed and went back to helping Hen arrange boulders. The job was made instantly easier when Floyd turned up. He looked grey and somehow smaller, but otherwise fine. He gave her a bashful smile and said, ‘Thanks, kid,’ and Nin patted his arm and said, ‘I’m glad you’re all right,’ and that was that.

  At Hen’s command, the piled-up boulders stirred into bouldermen nearly as huge as a Grimm guard. Bluelight eyes shone out from crevices where the boulders didn’t quite fit. The spaces weren’t even either, so one or both eyes could be too far to the side, or in a forehead, or where a nose ought to be. The bouldermen were to stand guard in the river where they could wait for days, ready to wreck any craft that tried to pass them. Just in case Strood’s army thought about sneaking in that way.

  Nin and Floyd watched them stride off, the ground shaking with their weight.

  ‘There are times,’ said Nin thoughtfully, ‘when I realise all over again just how creepy this world can be.’

  Next, Hen set her to strip the leaves and petals from piles of crowsmorte flowers to be turned into healing paste. The leaves she put in one pile, the petals in another and the cleaned stalks she passed to Hen to shred. Floyd went off to join the diggers.

  ‘So,’ said Hen as soon as they were settled, ‘you want to find Simeon Dark, eh? Where are you going to start?’

  Nin had already discovered enough to know that it was Hen who had found Jonas when he was lost in the Drift four years ago, and had brought him up. Hen had been born in the Drift, her parents having found their own way in without the help of bogeymen. She was one of the few Quick still living who remembered Celidon and the Final Gathering, though she had been a very little girl at the time. And she certainly knew all about magic.

  ‘Enid thinks Dark might be disguised as a Quick,’ said Nin. ‘Not stealing a body like Vispilio, just making his own look different. But really he could be anything, Fabulous, Grimm or Quick. And it needn’t be a human Quick. I mean, there’s the Great Bear In The Wood idea.’ She crinkled up her nose.

  ‘But you think there is something wrong with all that?’

  ‘What’s he living on?’ said Nin at once, suddenly realising that it had been bothering her for ages, she just hadn’t had time to put it into words. ‘Neither depends on dread or desire and he needs that, doesn’t he? To keep his spell going.’

  Hen smiled and her berry eyes twinkled. ‘He’s a clever one, Dark. You’re right. The other sorcerers’ spells depend on Quick to keep them going. Senta exists in the blood of her children. Vispilio needs a Quick heart to live in. Azork feeds on Quick life.’

  Nin nodded. ‘And Enid is a place of safety, and Nemus is shelter in the night. Both things the Quick need.’

  ‘But Dark, now what’s he done?’

  ‘Huh!’ She frowned. ‘Well, he’s become a legend I guess. You know, the mysterious Seventh Sorcerer.’

  ‘And why’s that so special?’

  ‘All the other Fabulous that are left, they’re magical in their own way, but they can’t actually do magic. Bogeymen can change shape, but just because that’s what bogeymen do. They can’t fly like faeries, or swim in the Land like Jik. Only sorcerers can cast spells and make magic. So a sorcerer could do any of the things the other types of Fabulous could do, but where a BM does superspeed because it’s the way they are made, a sorcerer could do it simply because he can do anything!’

  Hen nodded, smiling. ‘You’re certainly learning about the Land.’

  ‘Thanks. Anyway, what I’m getting at is, that’s why sorcerers are special. So, because he’s the only sorcerer left, Dark is the last bit of real living magic in the whole world. The last bit of that old magical world of Celidon.’

  Nin’s face cleared and her eyes brightened as it all clicked into place. ‘Of course! Simeon Dark, it’s like, he is Celidon, right? And the Quick don’t want Celidon to die. They don’t want magic gone from their lives forever.’

  She looked up at Hen and smiled. ‘It’s perfect. Nemus and Enid give the Quick something they want. But with Dark it’s not what he gives them, it’s what he is, that the Quick desire. Simeon Dark is still alive because everyone wants him to be!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Hen. ‘And it wouldn’t have worked unless Dark was the only one left.’

  ‘That’s not very nice is it! I mean, counting on the others ceasing to be sorcerers just so’s he could go on living.’

  ‘Sorcerers aren’t known for being nice,’ chuckled the old woman.

  Nin laughed, then sighed. ‘Doesn’t get me anywhere though, does it? I may know more about how his spell works, but I’ve still got to find out where he’s hidden!’

  Suddenly, a shout went up from some of the townsfolk and a shadow fell over the square. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up.

  Over the town, bees were swarming in great clouds, their furry golden bodies clustered so thickly they blocked out the sun. They were pouring out of the hives in streams and their buzz filled the air. Swirling together, the great mass circled the town once and then headed out over the river, disappearing swiftly into the distance. Soon, they were nothing more than a dark strip on the horizon and the sky was clear again, save for the distant, circling shapes of Hen’s smoke birds. A shocked silence fell across the town.

  Puzzled, Nin turned to Hen, but one look at the old woman’s face told her everything she needed to know.

  The bees had gone because death was coming to Hilfian. Strood’s army was crossing the Heart.

  All morning, while Nin had been stripping stalks and thinking about Simeon Dark, Jik had been finding interesting things in the town hall cellar.

  The Quick clearly had a mania for collecting any bits of old Celidon that they came across, even if they didn’t have a clue what it did. In Jik’s view, that just went to prove how much they missed it and wanted it back, even the deadly bits.

  Some of the items were long dead, their stored magic used up, and those Jik tossed aside. There were also things that were useful, but only if you wanted to heat water, travel fast, see in the dark and so on. He was more pleased to find three staffs of varying sizes that had fire power left in them, some wands, and a few charms that could be turned to good use as weapons.

  Seth had a knack of spotting live items too – after all, it was how he made his living – and once he had done with digging, he turned up, holding a battered old pack that he dropped at the back of the room, then got working alongside Jik.

  They were both ignoring the thing in the corner. Neither of them knew what it was and neither of them cared to find out. The four-foot-long item had been wrapped in several layers of thick cloth, but still shone bright enough to remove the need for a lamp. Jik had promised himself to have a look at it later. If he really had to. The steady, golden glow seeping through the cloth made his mud tingle uncomfortably. Seth hadn’t given it so much as a glance, but he knew it was there all right.

  ‘Well now! A faerie spindle!’ Seth picked up a slender needle wrapped in an old handkerchief. ‘This is a real find!’

  He held it up for Jik to see. The gleam from its elegant shape, etched all over with intricate swirls, looked sharp enough to cut flesh. It was about as long as Seth’s hand from his wrist to the tip of his finger and Jik didn’t like it at all.

  ‘Nik mikik.’

  ‘True, it hasn’t got any magic in it as such, but it’s not meant to have. It’s a tool, not a device. A spindle is what you use to shape or move other things, things of power. So, unlike those devices full of magic, this will never die.’

  Seth pointed the spindle at Jik, who backed off. For a moment he could have sworn he felt his inner fires twist, pulled towards the spindle.

  ‘Faeries used to use spindles to weave moonlight, or water into beautiful cloth to wear. Or fire. Fire made a lovely cloth.’

  ‘Ik!’ snapped Jik.

  ‘Well, true, but faeries were nasty things all round. Fierce and clever and very, very powerful. As powerful in their own way as the
sorcerers. And it takes a lot for me to say that.’

  Seth shook his head, his eyes fixed on Jik. ‘You’re interesting, I’ll give you that.’ A fierce grin split his face, lighting his green eyes. ‘But you caused me grief not so long ago, in the Giant Wood. Do you remember? I do, mudrat. Time for revenge.’

  Swiftly, Seth began to weave the spindle to and fro in a complicated pattern. Jik tried to dive into the safety of the earth, but suddenly his limbs felt like lumps of mud and he couldn’t move them. A chill spread through him as his inner fires began to flicker, drawn out by the spindle. He felt heavy, crumbly almost. Lumpy. He could see a pattern of golds and reds forming about the spindle, a pool of flame hanging in the air, growing as fast as the fire inside him faded. A crack split across his middle scattering a shower of dry earth on the floor.

  ‘Vikikikik,’ he said, recognising his enemy. Even his sight was dimming now. The pool of fire, the essence of his mudman life, seemed further away, its colours hidden by a creeping shadow that filled up the cups of his eyes as their flames dimmed to sparks. And then the sparks flickered and were gone and there was only darkness. Jik crashed backwards to the ground. He lay still.

  Seth stopped twisting the spindle and reached out with his other hand to catch the cloth of fire as it fluttered down through the air like a dropped handkerchief. The square of colours bathed Seth’s hand in golden light, turning the jewels of his many bracelets and rings into small fires of their own.

  He walked slowly over to the remains of the mudman and kicked him. Crumbs of earth skittered over the floor. If it hadn’t been for the crystals mixed into the mud, the useless body would have exploded back into the dust it really was.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said softly. And went to wait for Nin.

  21

  The Heart of the Heart

  About the time Nin was waking up, Evil Kid was hanging on to the edge of the raft as it cast off on its journey through the Heart of Celidon. He shivered as the current took hold and the raft began to pick up speed, hurrying towards the blanket of Raw. He was feeling anxious, because even if there were stories about how people had crossed the Heart by travelling on the river, he wasn’t convinced it was possible.

  All anyone knew for certain was that the river hurtled through the mist-draped Heart until it reappeared on the other side. This meant that there had to be some last dregs of the Land left undissolved by the Raw, otherwise there would be nothing to channel the water through the Heart and it would have rushed into the mist only to fall helplessly through the Raw until the river itself was dissolved. It was not a nice thought, and generally speaking anyone wanting to get to the other side of the Heart preferred the long journey around the edge.

  As their raft drew rapidly closer to the Heart, Evil Kid’s sharp eyes spotted a difference in the thickness of the Raw where it hung over the river. This difference hadn’t been all that visible before because of the general, surrounding whiteness of everything – like picking out a white hole on a white background. Evil Kid frowned, puzzled.

  And then understanding dawned. That difference in the thickness of the Raw had to be the reason why anyone travelling through the Heart this way might just make it out alive! The river’s advantage had to be the sheer vigour created by its speed. As the water rushed swiftly through the Heart, the Raw could not settle on it, or anything it carried. And if the Raw couldn’t settle on the river, and so couldn’t take hold of any Fabulous who happened to be travelling on the river’s back, then the icy mist couldn’t dissolve that Fabulous away to nothing. Or in the case of the Quick, couldn’t freeze it slowly to a horrible death. Evil Kid grinned, feeling a moment of triumph at having worked things out. It didn’t last.

  By now they were so close that the Raw towered over them, filling their world. The tiger-men yowled miserably. It dawned on Evil Kid that even travelling on the swiftly running river, they would still be surrounded by the Raw at its thickest and most terrifying. He wondered if he should swap back to Natural Bogeyman and do a superspeed runner, but it was too late. And he had to admit he was curious. The mudman had done this journey once, not by river of course, but on his own two feet, walking through the Heart. He never spoke about it, apart from hinting at some great horror that lay there, concealed at the very heart of the Heart …

  On second thoughts …

  Evil Kid looked over his shoulder at the rapidly receding world. No, definitely too late!

  He braced himself as the swiftly flowing water carried them across the threshold of the Heart and into a world of eerie white that arched over and around them so thickly it cut out all light and warmth and air. It wasn’t dark though, not at all. The Raw had its own light, an ice-white glow that made Evil Kid’s eyes ache if he stared into it too long.

  The tiger-men fell silent. Everywhere, purple eyes peered warily at the mist that rose on all sides. One or two of them shifted about, their claws scratching on the wooden planks. The temperature plummeted and Evil Kid could see his breath misting the air around him. He could also see that his theory was right. Where the river rushed through, its sheer speed cut a kind of tunnel through the Raw keeping its hungry mists away from them.

  Glancing back, Evil Kid could see nothing. He knew that the next raft would be following a minute or so behind theirs, but it was hidden from view by the curls of river vapour that rose from the hurrying surface of the water. They might as well be travelling through the Raw alone.

  ‘Well, so far so good,’ said Stanley, his voice sounding strangely dead on the icy air. He was examining the planks of the raft. ‘Not even touched!’

  Overhead the Raw hung like a dank, icy blanket. Ahead, though not far, Evil Kid could see the river like dark metal cutting through shadowy banks of scarred grey rock.

  Now, Stanley was examining the tiger-men. They were in a right state, shivering and whining like a bunch of sea-sick moggies.

  ‘Oy! If yer gonna chuck, try and do it over the side!’ he yelled, forgetting for a moment that they were actually deadly killing machines. ‘We’ll be ankle-deep in cat puke at this rate!’

  There was a chorus of hissing and snarling and many pairs of luminous and angry eyes switched in Stanley’s direction, along with a frightening display of teeth.

  Something grabbed Evil Kid’s sleeve. It crunched, stiff with frost.

  ‘Wha’s that?’ Jibbit sounded nervous.

  Evil Kid listened for a moment. ‘The Voice of the Land,’ he said in a whisper.

  It rose all around them from the river, in sighing waves that chilled their hearts as much as the Raw chilled their skin. It sounded like someone in the throes of a grief so deep it could never be healed, and as the raft went on the sound grew and grew, filling the air with bitter, heart-wrenching sobs. The tiger-men were silent now, listening, their claws outstretched and ready to attack, their eyes wide with a kind of dark loathing born from fear.

  ‘No,’ whispered Jibbit, ‘not singing. That!’ There was awe in his voice as he pointed ahead and up.

  Something reared through the mist, looming over them. It swept up from the banks in a wall of sheer grey. And it must have been as tall as the Raw too because it rose up and up in a great rugged mass that went on until it had disappeared in the white clouds. And even then Evil Kid just knew that it was still going.

  Jibbit gave a strange sigh of longing. ‘Is so high,’ he whispered, his stony eyes wide and full of desire. ‘Does it reach the sky? Is it …’ He paused, searching his brain for the right word, a word that conveyed the feeling of great, wonderful, heaven-reaching height. ‘Is it a cathedral?’

  ‘I dunno, do I?’ said Stanley. Feeling the raft bob and twist beneath him, he switched his gaze back to the river. His eyes went glassy and he muttered something incomprehensible and probably rude.

  ‘Wha’s that mean?’

  ‘Trouble, I suspect!’ Evil Kid watched curiously as Stanley lowered himself to his knees.

  ‘’ANG ON FER YER LIVES!’ the CO bellowed, then dropped flat on
his face and grabbed whatever handholds he could find. And then, suddenly, the river threw them over the edge of the world into darkness.

  Skerridge dropped Evil Kid shape like a shot. Natural Bogeyman was always best when it came to survival against the odds.

  What got him most was the sound. It wasn’t just the inhuman screams of the tiger-men as they scrabbled to hold on, digging their claws into the wood of the raft, or each other if necessary, nor was it the rushing roar of tons of water as it fell through the emptiness, it was the fact that all this racket barely dented the silence that enveloped them.

  They were falling through nothing. Absolute nothing. Here, even the Raw had gone, leaving a darkness so complete it made Skerridge’s eyeballs pop. All they had was the sound of their falling, and yet that sound was a tiny scraping in a silence so huge that he felt it was eating into his brain, stifling even the noise made by his thoughts. It was as if everything, even the things inside his head, had gone away and he was an infinitesimally small bit of nothing hurtling through a nothing so vast he couldn’t begin to understand it.

  He could understand one thing though. This was the horror at the heart of the Heart. Here even the raw, unformed magic that the Land was made from had died, killed by the plague. And it had left … emptiness.

  Something cold shoved into his ear and whispered, ‘Wha’s it?’

  And suddenly Skerridge’s brain clicked back into gear and he realised that he was being drenched in freezing spray, that several tiger-men had their claws bedded in his legs, and that, actually, the racket was deafening.

  He also realised that although, here at the heart of the Heart, the rocky walls of the ravine through which the river ran had been eaten away completely, the river still ran out the other side, which must mean …

  ‘’S a waterfall,’ he yelled over the thundering, which was getting louder and louder. ‘There’s nuffin’ ‘oldin’ the river up ‘ere, but furver down there mus’ be more rock.’